Archive for the ‘Zeppo Marx’ tag

Match races between automotive hotfoots take place all the time, but only one is known to have taken place between a Duesenberg Model J and a supercharged Mercedes-Benz S with several of Hollywood’s icons in attendance, and that very Duesenberg will cross the block at RM’s upcoming Hershey auction.

Originally owned by Phil Berg, a Hollywood agent and neighbor to E.L. Cord, the 1931 Duesenberg Model J, best known by its engine number, J299, features a LeBaron “barrelside” phaeton body, the only single-cowl version of the barrelside the LeBaron built. Berg bought it from a stock of Duesenbergs that Cord needed to liquidate in those Depression years and hadn’t owned it very long when Zeppo and Chico Marx spotted it parked on the street outside Al Jolson’s house on Sunset Boulevard, where Berg and his wife were playing bridge. The two Marx brothers jointly owned a Murphy-bodied 1928 Merdeces-Benz S boattail speedster and challenged Berg to a race, with a wager of $10,000. Within a short time, the wager increased to $25,000, about as much money then as what somebody with a $2.5 million salary today makes.

As recounted by automotive historian Griffith Borgeson in Automobile Quarterly volume 18, number 3, Berg and the Marxes settled on a 15-mile circular course at Muroc Dry Lake and an early October date. Through Cord, Berg secured the services of Eddie Miller, who headed Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg’s racing department, to prepare the Duesenberg while the Marxes hired Joe Reindl, the Los Angeles area’s premier Mercedes-Benz specialist, to tune the Mercedes.”Berg found himself enjoying what amounted to factory support while his adversaries, with Stuttgart more than 6,000 miles away, were on their own,” Borgeson wrote. “But this did not bother them in the least. Everyone, and (the Marxes) above all, was convinced that the lower, lighter, smaller, supercharged Mercedes would run away from the hulking Duesenberg.”

Stripped of fenders, bumpers, running boards, tops, and windshields, the two cars lined up on the appointed day under the gazes of Jolson, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mae West, and perhaps a couple thousand others. Flagged off by Harry Miller, the Mercedes – with Zeppo Marx at the wheel – took an early lead, but after the first five-mile lap, the Duesenberg – with Eddie Miller at the wheel – trotted out in front and left the Mercedes far behind. “I looked back, but could see no sign of my competition, swallowed up somewhere in my dust cloud,” Eddie Miller later told Borgeson.

Over the next five decades, J299 passed through a number of owners before landing in the collection of Ray Bowersox, a Pennsylvania business owner, in 1985. Bowersox commissioned a full restoration and has since toured regularly with it. While Bowersox will offer a number of vehicles from his collection at RM’s Hershey sale with no reserve, J299 and another Duesenberg Model J, J139, a Murphy-bodied sport sedan, will cross the block with reserves. RM believes J299 will sell for $1.2 million to $1.5 million – a far cry from the $3.74 million that the Marx brothers’ Mercedes-Benz brought when it sold at Gooding’s Pebble Beach auction in 2010.

RM’s Hershey auction will take place October 11-12 at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, Pennsylvania. For more information, visit RMAuctions.com.

UPDATE (15.October 2012): The Duesenberg took top sale of the auction; with premium, the price totaled $1,292,500.